Tag: Lydia

The Lydster, Part 95: A Good Heart, for Jamaica

Donations to the project came from all different sources including a generous, heartfelt gift from Lydia who had saved several months of her spending money because she felt ‘all children should have a safe school’

The Moses Baker Basic School in Golden Grove, Jamaica is in one of the poorest communities in a poor country. My mother-in-law writes: “The previous building was a wooden structure which was in bad condition, made even worse each time it was blown apart by hurricanes.” Her church in Oneonta, NY “had been sending teams down each summer [since 2000] to do projects in the community,” first working on getting the health center up to snuff, then repairing the preschool for about 80 kids. “No sooner were the repairs completed each year a storm blew through more than undoing all of the work. The residents picked up the pieces and put them back on as best they could.

Finally, the church decided to postpone the annual trips to save up some money to build a school strong enough to withstand severe storms, made of “rebar reinforced concrete… The old ‘building’ was torn down as soon as school ended in June 2011.

“The new construction started immediately in order to be completed in time for school in September 2011.” Info about the construction can be seen here. The Oneonta church pastor and her husband, an RN, went down last month to dedicate the building. The church had “raised about $70,000 for the project and, as the community wanted, built a strong building which could have a second story added at some time in the future if needed. The people were ecstatic, not only for the building but that the [pastor] had come since they have no pastor at present. But there is more to the story.

“Donations to the project came from all different sources including a generous, heartfelt gift from [her granddaughter, my daughter] Lydia who had saved several months of her spending money because she felt ‘all children should have a safe school’….” When she and my wife went to a clothing consignment shop to sell some clothes, Lydia was told that the money gleaned from the sale of her clothes could be spent by her. But she opted to donate this money to the Jamaica project as well.

Then, “the sugar company which has a monopoly on selling the area’s sugar had to return [some] money to Jamaica, and the decision-making group heard about this school. The company is giving $65,000 to build a needed retaining wall around the school and to further finish the school construction. In addition, they plan to give about $75,000 to the health center for community needs. Amazing! “

The Lydster, Part 95: Time

I was fascinated by cereal boxes, specifically the various B vitamins and how some of them, such as niacin and riboflavin, actually got their own names, rather than a mere alphanumeric designation.

Someone recently told me that children don’t really develop a strong sense of time until they are eight years old. If this is the case, then I really look forward to the Daughter’s next birthday.

As the person who gets her ready for school almost every morning, I can say that there is no correlation between what time she gets up and when she goes out the door for school. There have been mornings that I have to, almost literally, drag her out of bed, but then she becomes more alert and gets to school in plenty of time. There are other mornings she wakes early, yet we are rushing to get there before the late bell; in the latter case, it also imperils me catching my second bus of the morning and getting to work on time.

Some of the time issues involve play. But the vast bulk of it is her reading something. She reads everything – books, comic books, cereal boxes. And I realize that it is some sort of cosmic payback because I was THE SAME WAY.

When I was a child, I read the newspaper. I read the information on the back of my baseball cards. And I was fascinated by cereal boxes, specifically the various B vitamins and how some of them, such as niacin and riboflavin, actually got their own names, rather than a mere alphanumeric designation. So I was often late to things. I don’t think the Daughter’s quite at that point – YET – but I fear it’s coming because it’s probably genetic.
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Time – Pozo Seco Singers

The Lydster, Part 93: Line of Scrimmage

The thing that makes getting the Daughter dressed in the morning or evening take so long is her need to first throw her clothes past me. I believe this started innocently enough, with her teasing me by tossing her apparel for the day just out of my reach. But now it is codified, with all sorts of rules about where we each stand and what the goal is. I must say that the principles are fungible, but that the rules seemingly always favor her; of course, she SETS the rules, so there you are.

I have instituted the concept of punting the clothes, too. I’m really good at it, but she’s getting better.

Sometimes, when it’s taking too long, each of us catching the other’s tosses, I’ve been known to intentionally miss, not to soothe her ego, but because of lack of time. She always wins anyway, so it’s no big whoop.

In general, though we’re standing in the hallway. She holds the clothes and gets a point if she gets them past me. Neither one of us, though, can pass the line of scrimmage when we toss. “Line of scrimmage” is a phrase she learned playing football in gym class, not her sitting with me and watching football with me. Still, the fact that she knows the phrase, and the basic concepts, makes me happy, because, if/when she DOES want to watch a televised game with me, she’ll have a fundamental part down pat.

Somewhere I read that it is good for fathers and daughters to have games they can play with each other; this is ours. (Along with SORRY, UNO…)

The Lydster, Part 92: Homework

I had no idea how much HER schoolwork would impact on MY time.

When Lydia had homework in first grade, it was manageable. She would get a packet of eight sheets on Monday, and they were due on Friday. It became easy to pace the work. If Lydia had something going on one night, we could work around it.

But in second grade, she gets homework each of the first four weeknights of the week, PLUS a weekly spelling assignment. Monday night, in particular, is a real pain.

Lydia has to fit in dinner, her ballet class, her daily nebulizer, plus the usual ready-for-bed routine she goes through, in addition to the homework. Sometimes she and I were working on homework Tuesday morning, just before school. But with the new, earlier bus schedule for me, that is not feasible anymore.

The week of Halloween, she had no homework all week, because of some school testing. It felt almost like a vacation, not just for her, but also for me, who is the one generally helping and/or prodding her to finish her assignments. I had no idea how much HER schoolwork would impact on MY time. And it’s got to be tough for those students whose parents who DON’T participate in their children’s education.

I relish her school breaks more than she does, I do believe.
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Happy significant natal day, ZN.

The Lydster, Part 91: So Close

One could only get up to the loft by using a 10-foot ladder. And it wasn’t a straight ladder designed to get up to such a place; it was an A-framed ladder, the instructions – or more correctly, the WARNING – for which SPECIFICALLY states that it should NOT be used as a straight ladder.

I have very little recollection of being in hotels or motels with my parents growing up. When we weren’t at home, we either tended to stay at friends’ or relatives’ homes, or in a tent on our regular camping trips. Did I ever mention that I HATED our camping trips?

My wife and I, though, have been on a number of trips in hotels and motels with Lydia. When she was a baby or a toddler, it was easy enough to get her to go to bed, and we could stay up watching TV or reading. Not so with a seven-year-old, or at least our seven-year-old. She wouldn’t go to bed until we went to bed; it was partly the light bothering her, she said, but it was more her not wanting to be left out of anything.

So for 10 days – two in Niagara Falls, four in Toronto, two in Peterborough, and two in Canton – the three of us shared a room where the parents went to bed a little earlier than they might have been inclined to do so otherwise.

When we got to the cabin in the Adirondacks, Lydia, and eventually her cousins, got to sleep in a place of their own, up on this loft. You would think this would have made me happy, and it would have, but for one tiny detail: one could only get up there by using a 10- or 12-foot ladder. And it wasn’t a straight ladder designed to get up to such a place; it was an A-framed ladder, the instructions – or more correctly, the WARNING – for which SPECIFICALLY states that it should NOT be used as a straight ladder. Going up was fine, but I was afraid that she might fall if she had to climb down going to the loo in the middle of the night.

I went to bed in a room with my wife. But I woke up in the middle of the night, and half-slept in a cot just below the ladder. In the end, she was fine. Her cousins, who showed up a couple of nights later, were fine, though I was glad to be available to hold the ladder for them early in their first morning. And, finally, on the last night there, I actually slept the whole night through, quite possibly out of sheer exhaustion.

Ramblin' with Roger
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